Factoring Blog 18th March 2016

As the Midlands invoice finance community appeared to descend on Cheltenham, the week was notable for a budget where more seemed hidden in the detail rather than articulated in the Chancellors actual speech. What is getting clearer, is that politicians, of whatever ideological leaning, are in fact guided almost entirely by self interest and watching and listening to the majority of MP’s at Westminster is a depressing experience.

Specific to the world of invoice finance came the release of statistics up to 31st December 2015, these statistics come from the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) whose members are responsible for the vast majority of all Factoring (in the broadest sense) deals done.

There’s a lot of numbers to wade through but what is interesting and has been alluded to in previous blogs is that client numbers, in the vital £0 to £5m turnover range, are going backwards. As at 31.12.15 there were 35,326 businesses (with annual turnover in the £0 to £5m range) using ABFA member services. At 31.12.14 this figure was 35,470.

Given recent observations about client satisfaction levels, both from my own calls and reading survey results from assorted invoice financiers these figures are not only disappointing but surprising too. Reading some of the posts on LinkedIn suggests there are those who are bucking the trend and writing loads of new business but then again some LinkedIn posts may be a little ambiguous, i.e not true!

Least surprising news item of the week was The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s decision to hold Base Rate at 0.5%